


Mirror Mirror on the Wall

by JanaRumpandRCJawnn (JanaRumpandRCJawwn)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dysphoria, Gen, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 19:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7858939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanaRumpandRCJawwn/pseuds/JanaRumpandRCJawnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genji and Mirrors had a bad history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Mirror on the Wall

His father used to make him stand in front of a mirror all dressed up so he could see how “beautiful” he was.

_Stand in front of the mirror and accept the lovely girl you are._

He wanted to kill his father for saying that, wanted to drag his hands through his skin and rip his hair at the roots. He was not a girl, he was Genji. Genji. No matter how much they said that he should stop cutting his hair short, that he wasn’t a boy, or that he should stop acting like he was one. 

He hated his reflection.

-

Hanzo respected him. 

It wasn’t that surprising. Hanzo might have a stick up his ass, but he was a big brother and he cared for Genji. He didn’t disrespect their father, but he didn’t disrespect Genji either.

When Genji showed up with green hair and too buff, three months after leaving for college (three months in testosterone that he bought with his own money since his father refused to pay for that) Hanzo just rolled his eyes and asked ‘Really, green?”

Genji had laughed and said that when Hanzo stopped looking like fucking Itachi he could say something.

Perhaps that was why when Hanzo killed him it hurt the most.

Because Hanzo accepted him, he was Genji’s big brother and the one person in that blasted castle that he really loved. 

When Genji was left on the ground bleeding to death, in so much pain that he could barely think, all that occupied his mind was _Please, please let them bury me as a man._

He knew they wouldn’t, his father would be relieved Genji wouldn't be there to put up a fight about it. 

Perhaps this was why he managed to survive in the end. He would never actually know. 

\--

Genji had a healthy sex life.

Even before transition started, he was a smooth talker and he could charm any lady into going to dates and coming to his bed. He liked them, and some part of him felt safer around them, it calmed his insecurities. 

However, he knew he liked men as well, even if he avoided them like Hanzo avoided fun. He was scared of liking them that much, scared that it meant he had been delusional all this time - he knew that wasn’t true, but his gut twisted all the same. 

When he died he was finally beginning to feel safer with this part of himself, had actually kissed a man in a nightclub, made out with him. They didn’t go to bed together, but Genji had felt so light. There was freedom in actually knowing he could love whoever he wanted.

He was so hopeful and comfortable. He had actually showed up that day to tell Hanzo all about it. Foolish boy he was. 

\--

After everything, he cries in front of a mirror. 

He looks at this form of metal and technology and so little flesh and he wants to die. He doesn’t look like a person, he doesn’t look human. Even without his faceplate, the little of his human features that survived are scarred. 

And he is this way because of the one person he loved the most.

Was he always so disgusting? He touched his chest, the cold metal plate beneath his fingers (he guessed guess it would be cold, his sensory nerves still lacked too much in finesse). They were not his fingers in the end, they were just machine. 

He should have died. 

That’s all he could think most days. He looked at his reflection and he didn't see a man, he saw a thing and it was terrifying. 

\--

Angela Ziegler is the closest he has to a friend during Overwatch days. 

She is more than that though, she saved his life, damn right worked a miracle. Genji would be lying if he said she wasn’t the sort of person he would fall in love with, but there was something broken inside him on that department. 

They used to drink tea together and talk about things, never about the elephant in the room, the fact Angela knew every piece of his body, that she knew all the things he didn’t tell the rest of the team. They never spoke about what happened to let Genji on that state. 

(He did talk about all those things with the assigned therapist every Overwatch member had to see, even if it didn’t work out.)

It was hard accepting these people as sort of a family. Family for him wasn’t necessarily something nice, but he couldn’t just tell them that, so he let Jesse call him little brother - at least it was in English, if Mccree ever called him otooto he wasn’t sure he could have dealt with that - and he let Reinhardt take him to drinks and stuff. 

He does tell Angela about all these things, on Hanzo’s birthday, he gets drunk with her on the roof of Gilbratar and tells her a lot of things. He tells how he was actually comfortable with his body when he died, he tells her about his brother, every little thing about Hanzo, about how Genji had stole some of their father’s fancy sake for his brother’s twenty-first birthday.

Angela listens and cries and hugs him. 

He may hate a lot things about Overwatch and what happened to him, but Angela almost makes it worth it.

\--

He didn’t want sex afterwards. Just the idea of it made him miserable. 

Genji couldn’t even consider the idea that anyone would want him, he couldn’t even want himself. He knew it was dysphoria speaking and he hated it. He thought he was done with it, he had become so much more comfortable with himself, he hadn't hated himself anymore. But that was before, before his body became metal and he could no longer love himself. 

People still hit on him, though not that much since he became somewhat of a onmic in so many of their eyes. 

It’s weird, because at the same time he doesn’t want anybody to want him, doesn’t think that would be possible, and still he desperately craves for it. He craves for someone to tell him he is still handsome, that they still want him. Sometimes he watches as couples walk by, and he imagines himself being happy and accepting himself again. 

That sounds like such fucking bullshit.

He barely touches himself. Ironically enough, _that part_ of him survived the attempt on his life well enough. Genji was never shy about seeking his own pleasure, and yet, it feels plastic. Not enough and not even close to what he craves for. 

It takes him a long time - he has by then already left Overwatch and went on his way trying to find some meaning to his worthless life - to realize he doesn’t want sex. All Genji ever wanted was to feel like he could be loved, like someone could ever see in him the things he couldn’t.

\--

He sat in front of a mirror. 

He could almost see himself throughout all those years. He sees the tomboysh child that hated themselves, he sees the playboy young man with too many insecurites, he sees the cyborg that never asked for any of this. 

And he sees himself. He is older and he has made peace with who he is. 

There was no turning back anyway. He would always be 90% metal. That didn’t make him less of a person. That didn’t take away who he was. Genji would not lie and say this was for the better. He'd died, he'd suffered the worst of treasons and he did not believe in the myth that life never gives you more than you can take. 

He survived it all though, against everyone’s expectations. His Father’s. Hanzo’s. And even his own. 

He smiled to his reflection, and it didn't feel as foreigner as it once would have. 

And that was the closest he would get to a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> I projected hard on Genji for this fic, consider it a very nice venting moment  
> Alright, not nice. But not as angsty as it could be  
> Hope you enjoyed it an anyway.  
> Kissus
> 
> -jawwn


End file.
